The Four Great Military Attacl<s 
)n Cliristian Civilization 



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I — Dr. Dan R'Bradley. — June 16th, 1918. 



Text — Acts V: 38. — "Ye will not be able to overthrow them, 
lest haply, ye be found fighting against God." 



The Kaiser boasts that God is with him. But all 
history gives the lie to his confidence. If God had 
been with him he would long ago have been in Paris 
and controlling the English Channel — and the Suez- 
Canal — and dictating to America. But God has been 
against him — defeating his veteran armies — sinking 
his ships at sea — crippling his allies — and starving his 
people. If the Kaiser had historical imagination he 
would see that the experience of all civilization has 
been contrary to his hope and expectation. For mili- 
tary power is ever fighting against the ideals of Jesus- 
that is against God — and ideals always prevail because 
God is with them. For you can destroy armies and 
spike the cannon and sink the ships — but you can 
never shoot out of humanity the ideals of Jesus. 
The Beatitudes cannot be hit by torpedoes. The Gol- 
den Rule cannot be gassed out of the world and the 
Lord's Prayer — goes on doing business when military 
chieftains are rotting in the memories of men. Let 
us consider this morning four great historical military- 
attacks on Christian civilization. 

Christian Civilization as we understand it, began 
with the preaching of Jesus in Palestine the first 
century. It was carried by St. Paul to Europe about 
the middle of that century — it made progress in city- 
centers like Antioch, Alexandria, Athens, Corinth, 
Carthage and Rome. It finally absorbed the Roman 
Empire just as that Empire of the Caesars was di- 
vided into East with a center at Constantinople, and 
West with the old center at Rome. In both these 
centers the Christian faith became dominant. Chris- 
tianity absorbed the old Greek and Roman civiliza- 
tions, and instead of destroying them, made use of 
them and adapted them. The worship of heathen 
gods passed away, but the beautiful sculpture, archi- 
tecture, literature was preserved, although the tem- 
ples and palaces they once graced had ceased to be 
pagan. The Emperor Constantine in the famous 
phrase, In hoc signo vinces — surrendered to Chris- 



lat, "Ch 



tianity in the year 312. Following that, "Christianity 
made its way rapidly into Spain, Gaul, Germany, 
Britain and what is now the Balkans and Austria, and 
began to organize the fringes of the Roman Empire 
into something of orderly progress. Schools and 
churches came together, and Greek and Latin took the 
place of the native dialects and languages. For a 
hundred years in spite of local wars, there came to 
be a real civilization in France, Britain, parts of Ger- 
many and what is now Austria Hungary. The Eas- 
tern Empire centering at Constantinople grew strong- 
er, the Western Empire centering at Rome grew 
weaker as its component parts in Spain, Gaul, and the 
Germanic peoples grew more self-reliant. The old 
Roman stock was dying out — and Italy was now a 
mixed race of people with the Goths coming to be 
dominant in the North, and the Vandals in Sicily and 
the South. But all these people were gradually com- 
ing under the sway of the Christian religion, even 
though the western Roman Empire itself was about 
to expire. 

It was at this juncture, just when the western world 
was beginning to shape itself — under the new Chris- 
tian ideas, that there appeared a wild multitude of 
Tartar tribes, under the leadership of fierce warriors 
— the Hun invasion — which swept over nearly all of 
Europe coming from the East and crossing the Vol- 
ga river in Russia in the year 350 and driving before 
them the Germanic tribes, and for 100 years playing 
havoc with all the foundations and results of civili- 
zation. Like grasshoppers sweeping over a wheat 
field they left a desolation behind them. By the year 
450, they had reached Eastern France, having con- 
quered the Slavs, the Goths, the Burgundians — every- ) 
thing north of the Danube, and compelling the Em- 
peror at Constantinople to pay them tribute. Attila 
was at this time their great king — a man of ugly as- 
pect — but indomitable will and unscrupulous rascal- 
ity. He laid claim to the Empire of the West and i 
proceeded to take possession of all that his soldiers 
could seize. The danger to civilization from this in- 
human beast was beyond all calculation. Caring for 
neither books nor art nor ideals of any sort, he turned 
his wild hordes loose to pillage and loot, and outrage 
every decent ideal of men. His threat was that of 
pure savagery, without religious motive, or political 
principle. But for the sturdy walls of Constantinople 
which he knew not how to scale — but for the super- 
stitious awe that the presence of Pope Leo gave to 
his savage comrades, he would have sacked both Con- 
stantinople and Rome and destroyed all the centers 
? 



of western civilization. At last a Roman General 
Actius, for whom all men should be grateful, met his 
vast army as Chalons Sur-Marne within a few miles 
of the scene of the German's recent drive — and after 
a terrible battle in which 300,000 were left dead upon 
the field — Attila was defeated, his power gradually 
waned — ^he himself retired not long after to Buda, 
now Buda Pesth — and there suddenly died of apo- 
plexy. His great dominion went to pieces — his sol- 
diers and the multitude that followed him vanished 
away. Within ten years a military power made in- 
vincible by 100 years of preparation, came to naught 
because there was no spiritual motive in it, and 
in Europe today there is not a single trace of the 
Hun. The Hungarians are of an entirely different 
stock, and their name has no connection with the fol- 
lowers of Attila. The damage done by Attila and his 
savage Tartars can never be computed. They set 
back the progress of Europe for centuries. The 
books, architecture, art, they destroyed utterly is in- 
calculable. They broke up organizations and guilds 
and groups of civilized men — they killed off a great 
part of European manhood and the recovery from 
their mutilation was long and tedious. 

But Christian civilization survived this brute at- 
tack, because it has in it the vitality of youth — and 
life — and a spiritual upward looking motive and with 
the passing of the Hun, and the fall of the Western 
Roman power — there grew up smaller States in what 
is now France and Spain and Italy. From the North 
came sturdy races to mingle their blood with the 
Southerners, Lombards, blue-eyed, penetrating as far 
as Central Italy, Saxons, from across the Rhine, and 
Norsemen swarming down the coasts and up the 
rivers of France, there met the missionaries of the 
Church, and around the church and Monastery grew 
cities, with merchants and manufacturers and guilds 
of skilled men, and horticulture and agriculture were 
developed. Then came the second attack — also mil- 
itary, this time from the South. 

When Mohammed let loose his new Arabian 
scourge upon the world, in the year 622, a part of the 
forces of Islam went North and East, and conquered 
Palestine, Syria and Persia and part of India. An- 
other part went west, to Egypt, and Lybia and 
along the North Coast of Africa clear west to the 
Atlantic ocean, founding a different sect of Moham- 
m.edans — the Moorish division of Islam which has 
continued until now in the Kingdoms of Morocco and 
Algiers. 

These Arabian warriors absorbing the wild tribes 
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of the mountains, the Maiiretania of North Africa, 
from which we get the name Moor, began to prepare 
for wider conquests, and in the year 711 they crossed 
the Straits of Gibraltar and began a campaign of 
conquest in Portugal and Spain, and in the year 755 
had established the Caliphate at Cordova which lasted 
for 300 years. But the threat of this Mohammedan 
power against the Christian civilization of the west 
reached its culmination in the year 732, when a vast 
army of Arabs and Moors under the Sultan Abdur- 
ahman marched into France, and driving all before 
it, penetrated as far north as Poitiers within 200 miles 
of Paris. This was a more dangerous attack than 
that of Attila, because the Moors had a higher civil- 
ization — they had a religion that was vital — they had 
an organization that did not depend upon the life of 
one man — they had a so-called culture — art and archi- 
tecture and music and poetry were the ornaments of 
their movement. The Alhambra in Spain shows what 
they could do in the development of beautiful form. 
So when they attacked with their vast hordes the di- 
vided principalities of France and Italy they consti- 
tuted a serious menace. If they won France, Britain 
and by and by Italy would have yielded to the Moor 
and western civilization would have perished. 
Once more there arose a commander who met them in 
battle — Charles Martel by name — and when the battle 
was over the panic stricken army of the Moors was 
fleeing headlong across the Pyrenees never to return. 
The battle of Poitiers in 732 like that of Chalons 
Sur-Marne in 451, was decisive. Once more it was 
the sturdy French infantry that stood all day against 
the fierce attacks of the finest cavalry in the world — 
Arabian and Moorish. When night fell — the fol- 
lowers of Islam began to fight among themselves — 
and a panic ensued — so that by morning the Christian 
army of Charles Martel was astonished to find the 
enemy vanished and leaving on the field arms and 
ornaments and tents and trappings and the plunder 
of many cities. After that Europe became organ- 
ized under Charlemagne, and the kingdom of France 
arose to become the splendid bulwark of Christian 
civilization for centuries. 

Thr third threat to Western Christian civilization 
came from another Tartar tribe which had become 
the leader of Mohammedan faith — the Ottoman 
Turk. The Arabians and Saracens who were the first 
of the Mohammedan powers, after their initial suc- 
cesses became quite decent and settled down to a 
peaceful civilization at Bagdad and Damascus, Aleppo 
and Alexandria. They had found it even profitable 
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to have friendly dealing with Christians in the Orient 
in spite of the Crusades, and about their courts poet- 
ry and painting flourished. Then there appeared out 
of the old savage center of Tartary the tribe of Otto- 
man Turks v^ho cared for little except plunder, 
whose single argument was the sword, and who car- 
ried fire and blood wherever their fierce regiments 
marched. They soon became leaders of the Mos- 
lems, and attacked the Eastern Empire, destroyed it 
and made the Black sea a Alusselman Lake. Into 
Russia, Thrace, Bulgaria, Roumania, the3^ penetrated 
with their armies and swept all before them up the 
Danube to Vienna — and across the Balkan Peninsula 
and Greece to the Adriatic. Meanwhile Western 
Christendom was torn with the strife of the Refor- 
mation, and kings and their armies were engaged in 
fighting religious battles between Protestant and 
Catholic. The Turk controlled all Eastern Europe 
and North Africa and his ships swept the Mediter- 
ranean Sea, until the Archduke Don John of Spain- 
destroyed the Turkish fleet at the famous battle of 
Lepanto in Greece. Under Selim — and finally under 
Solyman the Magnificent — all Hungary and the Jugo 
Slavic country was engulfed in the Mohammedan 
invasion. Only the walls of Vienna stood between 
the Turk and Germany, Italy and France. At this 
juncture, there came to the rescue another stalwart 
soldier — the famous Polish King John III — Sobieski, 
who with his 20,000 men, came to the rescue of the 
hard-pressed garrison of Vienna and gained a great 
victory over the Turk and drove him back into the 
Balkans and down the Danube. This was in 1683 — 
soon after the settlement of New England. When it 
is recalled that Vienna is in the very heart of Europe, 
only 400 miles from Berlin — and 500 miles nearer to 
Paris or Rome than to Constantinople, it will be seen 
in what danger all the Western world stood in this 
threat of the unspeakable Turk. Here again was an 
unscrupulous military organization bent on plunder 
and hating the Christian faith prepared to the last 
degree, and using first of all modern men what was 
then the most modern weapon — cannon and gunpow- 
der — if it had been victorious would have destroyed 
every vestige of Christian civilization. But the 
threat passed, and from that day to this the power of 
the Turk and the religion that rendered him desper- 
ate began to wane. 

The Fourth great military attack upon the Chris- 
tian civilization was that of Napoleon Bonaparte at 
the end of the 18th and the beginning of the 19th cen- 
tury. His was the most brilliant military and polit- 
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ical career of any man in all time. Born in a little 
island of the Mediterranean of Italian stock, he came 
to be the ruler of all Europe. He carried his victorious 
armies to Asia and Africa, and placed the crown of 
an heredetary Empire upon his own head in 1804. In 
1807, he was the head of a great confederacy of 
States which included practically every nation in 
Europe, all of whom acknowledged his mastery. Eng- 
land alone refused to obey his will, and but for Eng- 
land, he would have ruled in our Mississippi Valley, 
a region from Canada to Mexico, which he held and 
afterwards sold to Pres. Jefferson ; and possibly, hav- 
ing defeated England, he might have dominated the 
United States, through his Louisiana possessions. 

Napoleon took advantage of the new tide of democ- 
racy which had been released by the French Revolu- 
tion, but which had been discredited by the Reign of 
Terror. The people of France had been thoroughly 
awakened by their new liberties, but scoundrels had 
made freedom a bloody orgy of massacre and confis- 
cation. So when Napoleon came, professing to be a 
democrat, but guaranteeing good order and personal 
safety — they followed him. He inherited the new 
strength of the people — got to the loyalty of the peo- 
ple's armies and turned them to his own selfish ends. 
The Church also had been almost wrecked by the 
French Revolution, and he made it a tool of his own 
materialistic ambitions. Neither fearing God, nor 
loving men, he was a lonely autocrat proposing to 
rear a personal empire for personal ends and sacri- 
ficed the lives of hundreds of thousands, not only 
Frenchmen but of Germans, Austrians, Slavs, Ital- 
ians, Spaniards, Scandinavians, Dutchmen and Arabs. 
There was an utter lack of conscience in the man, 
and what he lacked in conscience he gained in a rare 
and marked intelligence. If ever there was a super- 
man, Napoleon was that superman. He saw through 
situations as the lightning illuninates the darkness. 
The political movements of his enemies, their mili- 
tary plans, were as the plans of immature children 
in the presence of genius. One after another the 
coalitions of great powers vanished before his mighty 
strokes, both of politics and of battle. And in the 
leisure between battles, he had time to codify laws, 
build great and beautiful cities, cultivate arts and 
music, and captivate beautiful women. Cruel to his 
enemies, lavish in his gifts to his favorites, with a 
power to h)^notize and use good men in his plans- 
Napoleon was the most dangerous enemy of public 
morals and the rule of people the world had ever 
seen until the Kaiser came. His soldiers were willing 
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to die for his selfish aggrandizement. His bombastic 
orders were received with multitudinous acclaim. His 
Court was crowded with learned and gifted syco- 
phants. All the world seemed to be at his feet. All 
the world except England — and against her he com- 
bined all Europe to starve her out and destroy her 
commerce. But the little Island, with untold sacri- 
fice and marvelous persistence — continued to fight 
him, until at last the people of Spain, Portugal and 
of Central Europe rose up and finally destroyed him. 
If Napoleon had won — then the world had lost its 
Christian civilization and lapsed into a military pag- 
anism, with the forms of Christianity doing honor to 
the pagan Emperor but with all Christian liberty and 
ideals discredited and destroyed. But Napoleon 
came to naught. When he fell — when he was held a 
prisoner in St. Helena — it was seen plainly by all 
men — how weak was the structure on which he 
sought to build a personal military Empire — and how 
foolish after all, even a genius can be, when he 
flouts the law of God, and undertakes to put himself 
on the throne of the world, without conscience and 
the love of men. 

The French who had been leaders of civilization, 
paid dearly for their Napoleonic obsession. So many 
of their men were killed in battle that the result was 
a lowering of the physical stature of all Frenchmen. 
Through a long hundred years the French have been 
recovering themselves from the wars of Napoleon. 
How well they have recovered they are showing to- 
day in their heroic stand for four long grueling years 
against the Germans. As France saved civilization at 
Chalons Sur Marne in 432 against Attila, as she again 
saved Western Christian civilization in 751 at Poitiers 
— so she is now saving civilization in Picardy and 
Champaign, and paying in full the price of her lapse 
in the days of Napoleon Bonaparte. When this war 
is over, there will be a France which all the world 
will salute. 

This brief resume of these four historical attacks 
on the part of military powers against Christian civil- 
ization give us encouragement regarding this latest 
Prussian military attack against our Christian order 
of society. For there is nothing so clear as that the 
Kaiser's war is without a shred of a rag of moral ex- 
cuse to cover its naked savagery. That it is utterly 
anti-Christian, the cruelties and crimes against inno- 
cent women and children, its sacrilege of churches 
and shrines, and its immoral conduct on land and sea 
and its barbaric justification of Turkish frightfulness, 
discloses increasingly. Neither Addurahman, or At- 
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tila or Solyman were more hostile to the Christian 
ideals than the Prussian military organization. 

And finally, it is clear by the testimony of history 
that Christian ideals are stronger than the most pow- 
erful military organization. Neither Attila with his 
preparation of fifty years, nor Addurahman with the 
background of 100 years of military success, nor 
Solyman with the finest army and arms ever assem- 
bled up to that time, nor Napoleon with the most 
wonderful genius— and the best trained army of vet- 
erans the world has known could prevail to enthrone 
military ideals as against the Christian ideals of 
peace and good-will — though in each case the attack 
was long prepared for, and the defense was not pre- 
pared, but had to be in each case extemporized. 

It appears that over the chess-board where justice 
plays against selfish and cruel might — there is an un- 
seen divine hand moving the pieces upon the board, 
to check, and checkmate the power of evil. 

Attila was defeated by a strange misunderstanding, 
when sure of victory, Thursimund appeared upon his 
unprotected flank, and threw his men into a rout.. 
Addurahman at Poitiers was left undone by the 
panic of his men at night, when the victory was al- 
most won. Solyman did not count on Sobieski and 
his gallant Poles, and Napoleon was defeated by the 
unusual winter in Moscow, and by the appearance of 
Blucher on the flank at Waterloo, just when the thin 
red line was wavering. And so it may be that the un- 
locked for American soldier appearing on the hard- 
pressed line of French in Champaign may be the 
pawn in the hand of the celestial chess-player that 
shall be the undoing of the latest Hun. 

At any rate, it is God's world and it is the civiliza- 
tion of Jesus that is threatened, a civilization of good 
will and justice "and the gates of hell shall not pre- 
vail against it" — in spite of frightfulness and long ij 
preparation and bitter cruelty and submarines and 
poisonous gas — and all the demoniac engines of self- f 
ishness. May God hasten the day, when good men, 
sacrificing everything, may see "of the travail of their 
souls and be satisfied." The forces of cruelty and (I 
greed and oppression cannot win for they fight ij 
against God. 

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